Maxxam Corp

A company owned by the founders of clothing retailer Gap Inc. won preliminary approval Friday to take over bankrupt Pacific Lumber Co., which owns more than 200,000 acres of timberland along California's North Coast. A federal bankruptcy judge in Corpus Christi, Texas, said in a ruling that he would approve a reorganization plan by Mendocino Redwood Co., but the Ukiah, Calif., company would have to make some changes to the plan. Final approval of the takeover could be further delayed if creditors decide to appeal the ruling.

A company owned by the founders of clothing retailer Gap Inc. won preliminary approval Friday to take over bankrupt Pacific Lumber Co., which owns more than 200,000 acres of timberland along California's North Coast. A federal bankruptcy judge in Corpus Christi, Texas, said in a ruling that he would approve a reorganization plan by Mendocino Redwood Co., but the Ukiah, Calif., company would have to make some changes to the plan. Final approval of the takeover could be further delayed if creditors decide to appeal the ruling.

A former federal prosecutor and private investigator whose agency was retained by investment banking firm Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. misrepresented himself as working for a House subcommittee looking into corporate takeovers, the subcommittee was told Monday. The allegation before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee was made by William G. Bertain, a Eureka, Calif.

A former federal prosecutor and private investigator whose agency was retained by investment banking firm Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. misrepresented himself as working for a House subcommittee looking into corporate takeovers, the subcommittee was told Monday. The allegation before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee was made by William G. Bertain, a Eureka, Calif.

Maxxam Corp. has said it has received a contract from the Naval Weapons Center to perform a feasibility analysis for the application of its patented squirm drive power transmission system used in fin-actuator systems. The company did not disclose the value of the order.

A U.S. administrative law judge has ruled against bank regulators in a long-running lawsuit seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from Houston's Maxxam Corp. and its chairman, financier Charles Hurwitz, over the 1988 failure of a Texas savings and loan. In a decision issued late Wednesday, Judge Arthur Shipe recommended the case be dismissed and the Office of Thrift Supervision receive none of the nearly $826 million it had been seeking in connection with the disputed $1.

In a "political response" to a "political act," Rep. Pete Stark (D-Oakland) introduced a bill to give federal scenic river status to several Northern California streams as a way to prevent the logging of some old-growth redwood trees. The Headwaters Forest in Mendocino County belongs to Pacific Lumber Co., which has been criticized for destroying increasingly scarce old redwoods to pay off debts incurred by leveraged-buyout artist Charles Hurwitz when his Maxxam Corp.

Environmental activists and sympathetic politicians rallied to criticize a Los Angeles-based company's plans to cut down the world's largest remaining privately owned virgin redwood forest. Several dozen demonstrators gathered at the Westwood headquarters of Maxxam Corp., which was criticized for over-harvesting redwood forests to pay off debt incurred during its hostile 1986 takeover of the Pacific Lumber Co. At issue is a Humboldt County redwood grove known as the Headwaters Forest.

"D.A. Took On Loggers and Ran Into a Buzz Saw" (April 27) cites Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer's reason for not aiding the crusading Humboldt County district attorney: a conflict of interest over his responsibilities to the state's departments of Forestry and Fish and Game. But the "mutual defense pact" [in the Headwaters deal] that Lockyer is hiding behind most certainly does not require him to defend a corporation accused of fraud and illegal business practices. The suit filed by the Humboldt County district attorney is not on environmental misdeeds, though Maxxam Corp.

An array of properties offered by the state as part of a $380-million trade to protect the ancient Headwaters Forest was rejected Tuesday by timber company officials, who said they prefer cash. Pacific Lumber Co. of Scotia and its corporate parent, Texas-based Maxxam Corp., said none of the parcels suggested by the state were acceptable in the plan to save the redwoods. But they stopped short of saying the deal had been killed.

California spared the world's largest privately held stand of ancient redwoods from the logger's ax Saturday, as Gov. Pete Wilson signed over the state's half of a $500-million deal to buy the Headwaters Forest. "I am convinced that what we are doing will stand the test of time and nature, knock on wood," Wilson said. Under the agreement--widely condemned by environmentalists--Pacific Lumber Co.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration pledged to fight any attempt to ease protections for old coastal redwoods that could be threatened by a timber company's bankruptcy filing. Pacific Lumber Co., a subsidiary of Houston-based Maxxam Corp., sought bankruptcy protection in Texas earlier this month, saying it could no longer make a profit because of logging restrictions on its 200,000 acres of timberlands in Humboldt County. The Scotia, Calif.